Concept Description – “There could be a slower and simpler lifestyle in a landscape fashion”
Our design intent is based on the fact that people are living under such hustling and bustling in almost every single city of China, where things go fast and get complicated easily, where people feel exhausted frequently. Started with that thinking, for this project, we decided to deliver a landscape with distinctive experience and appearance in contrast to the world outside of the community. We also believe landscape could be received by people not just visually but also psychologically, in a way that people can feel retreated and relaxed back home. Instead of being stuffed with too many picturesque decorative features, the landscape is conceived to make everything simple and slow for people and embrace them to escape the outside chaos.
There were 3 things we looked into: easy circulation, simplified landscape color palette and flexible landscape programs. There won’t be any unnecessary detour before people get home. So, a straightforward loop connecting all residential towers sets up the basic framework of space. For color palette/texture, green and concrete white dominates the overall landscape. Green is probably the most relaxing color and white makes people feel clean and pure. Other than that, few colors are used. Lastly, we believe social is the key in a community environment and people love talking to each other and even love venting by him/herself in certain corner. Therefore, the design intended to reserve as much space as possible for people gathering, activities.
Space – Five Characters
1. contemplation pool
The mirror-like pool captures what’s high above and give a moment of calm-down for people immediately after they step into the community. Three reinforced glass fiber sculptures appear to be floating on the water while the dark tiles of slate at bottom of pool creates a reflective background.
2. meandering garden
The garden is shaped by 5 spherical planting beds, which integrated with mist and Rhododendron. The circular paths intend to slow down the pace of walk and to grab people into all these moments surrounded -contemplation, art, aroma, mist, etc.
3. meandering garden
The community common is inspired by the local history- the city of Foshan was one of four cities for “Gather” in hundreds years ago. A city of “Gather” means that it was a regional economic hub for trading and business back to old days in China. We took that concept and develop 4 arc-bench made from white washed concrete gavel. They face to each other so that in a way it encourages social and interaction between neighbors just like hundreds of years ago the trade and business took place. It’s also flexible enough to accommodate all different programs and activities in community scale.
4. covered walk
The walkway navigates the quickest route to each 3 residential towers. It’s covered by a 4m high single-side cantilever structure with white aluminum panel coated. The structure not only allows 360 panoramas to the central garden but also mitigate the visual pressure of heavy structure.
5. gateway
The gateway anchors an overflow water table in the center, which encompasses a generous drop-off in front of the entrance. Aligned with the centerline of entrance space, the water feature also leads your view towards the garden inside through a translucent stainless steel screen, which introduces the garden with a mysterious mask.
Materiality
Due to the simplicity and singularity of this landscape characters, we were so serious about material selections including both hardscape texture and planting palette. There are 3 categories for our material selection:
White series: washed concrete gravel+ aluminum panel+ reinforced glass fiber (these are materials could be in monolithic state so that we could have very few of joints and connections)
Green series:The planting selection is key to the project. We chose Rain Lily, Rhododendron, and Ivy as they are perfect to deliver singularity of a carpet-like ground.
Reflective material: polished Stainless Steel captures all things surrounded and give a sense of liveness. It also establishes interactions and reactions among people.
Last but not least…
Thanks for this collaborative effort by the client, construction team. It took us more than a year from the very first sketch to the last sweep on the site. There were lot more interesting ideas/ techniques emerged during this process, to explore what else could landscape do for human and maybe one of the answers is right here at Vanke Golden Riverside Phase II.
Short office name: Instinct Fabrication
Role of your office in the project: Landscape Design Consultant
Website: www.instinctfabrication.com
Design Team: Ying Lou, Mazen Mao, Zijun Su, Shengyang Liu, Xian Wu
Landscape Construction: Pudao, Shenzhen, China
Project location (Street, City, Country): Foshan, Guangdong, China
Design year: 2017
Year Built: 2018
